Chris' Christian Blog

February 9, 2022

Today, 13 years ago, I surrendered myself to the 12 step programs. Although I did not like some of the idolatry there, I found spirituality there. The "Higher Power" concept began to take root in me and I developed working faith. I also learned how to behave in a spiritual manner. I eventually upgraded and began going to church full time, but I am grateful to these programs for not preaching to me but showing me how to live what I preached. I have been drug free for 13 years today.

"Prompt: Psalm 91:1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. In your opinion, what is the secret place of the most High?"

This is such an important question that I have highlighted my response by making it bold and in bigger font.

I would have to do some research on the Hebrew root word translated "secret" here, but I do not believe "secret" to be the best translation. God wants a relationship with His people. He has gone all out to have that relationship. He has gone so far as to become one of us, leaving the glories and rights of heaven behind, to take on weak human flesh so that He could be seen and touched by us humans. He died for us in an effort to restore us to a right relationship with Him. I don't believe there is anything "secret" about God. I personally believe that is a terrible translation because it implies that God is unapproachable.

I think what it is referring to is that God lives on a different plane than we do. We cannot get to that plane on our own. We must be taken there by God Himself. God however, will not take us there as hostages. We must be willing to go. Once we are there we will find that God blesses us immensely. I try to spend as much time as possible sitting at the feet of Jesus. I do that by first getting myself out of the way. A friend said the other night in a social media post that the pecking order was: "God first, (herself) second, her family third, and others last."

I once felt that way too. Then somebody taught me to put myself dead last in that pecking order, just as Jesus did. I tried it and found that the satisfaction of serving others was the key to success. We are born selfish and self-centered. Our entire focus is on ourselves. Augustine said we were "homo in se incurvatus" or "curved inward" meaning that our focus is into ourselves. God did not create us to be this way. He created us to be focused outwardly upon others. Naturally we will focus on those closest to us. So the real pecking order is: God first and above all, others, including family second, and myself dead last. God's kingdom is a kingdom of paradoxes and mirror reflections of the world. The world values pride. God values humility. The world values strength. God values weakness. The world values competition. God values assistance. The world is dog eat dog. God is dog feeding dog. God is the complete mirror opposite of the world. The world sees God as aloof and secret. God is anything but aloof and secret. He is approachable and seeks to be known. The world values privacy. God values being known as He knows Himself. The "secret" place is no secret. It is at the feet of Jesus. Satan does not want us to know this so he uses the weaknesses of human language to hide this behind mistranslated or hard to translate words like the one translated "secret" here. Satan wants us to think God is hiding something from us. It worked with Adam. Adam thought God was hiding something and that doubt made him mistrust God and eat the forbidden fruit. Satan has used that tactic ever since. Why should he not use it? It works for him. We humans bite every time. God is not hidden in a "secret" place. He is fully exposed and has fully exposed Himself in Jesus Christ.

The response asks us what we think the secret place of God is. My response to that question is that I do not like the use of the word “secret” where God is involved. Does God have secrets? Sure, he does! Even Paul talks of the “unknowable” things of God. However, God does not want to hold secrets from man. God wants to know and be known by us. He wants a relationship with us. If we knew everything there was to know about God the knowledge would probably make our finite minds explode. On the other hand, God has proven His desire to be known by His creatures. He has shown this by becoming a human being Himself and dwelling among us. Jesus said “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father for the Father and I are one," John 10:30. The statement seemed so outrageous to those with Him at the time that many wanted to stone Jesus for saying it. Yet we know that Jesus was and is indeed God. He is the Son of God but He is also the Father as He and the Father are two aspects of the same Person or God.
Satan’s tactic from creation until the present day has been to sow doubt. “Did God REALLY say not to eat from that tree? (This began to make Eve doubt herself. She wondered if she had misunderstood.) Satan wanted Eve to think that perhaps God had been mistaken or that Eve had been mistaken. Then to erase any doubt about where Satan wanted Eve to believe the fault lay the serpent added “God knows that when you eat of this fruit you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
At this point Satan not only wants Eve to doubt herself, he also wants her to doubt God. He is trying to convince her that God is withholding something desirable from her. After all, what could be better than being exactly like your Creator? In Eve’s defense it seems desirable to be like God and I believe she truly wanted to be exactly like her Maker. There was nothing wrong with that desire. After all, believers are to strive every day to be like Jesus. In Eve’s defense, she thought she was desiring something good. After all, here was an opportunity to be like her Maker. All she had to do was disobey her Maker to be like Him! In her heart of hearts, she had good intentions in that respect. However, the desire to be like God was what caused Satan to be tossed out of God’s presence. Satan became prideful and wanted to be God. Now Satan sees that the way to destroy man is to get man to latch onto the same desire that brought about Satan’s demise. Satan wanted man to desire to “be like God.” To do this Satan needed only to amplify what was already there. After all, man is created with an inherent desire to know and mimic God. Any child wants to be like its parent. It’s natural. Satan needed only amplify the desire to “be like God” in Eve. To do so he had to convince Eve that God was holding back. “You won’t surely die” the serpent said “for God knows that in the day you eat of this fruit you will be like God.”
Now Satan has upped the ante. He has not only amplified the natural desire of Eve’s heart, but he has told her “Hey! This God dude is holding out on you. God is deceiving you. God is not telling you the whole truth. So, since God is not going to tell you how to fulfill your natural desire to be like God, I am going to tell you.”
The rest of course was all downhill. Eve believed Satan and thought God was lying to her. She convinced Adam and they both ate the forbidden fruit. Was it an actual fruit or was the tree and fruit a metaphor? Either way, the result was that Eve doubted God. In doing so, separation came between man and God, and God withdrew into a “secret place.” That secret place however was exposed at the cross and no longer exists!


Prompt: "Today, still bumping around in the Romulan neutral zone, we saw a star. Starling writes about the "sandman" in The Sandman

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What is the sandman to you?"

The Sandman to me is the peaceful (usually) rest I get at night. I take a sleeping pill and it puts me into a strage of sleep where I do not have the vivid dreams I typically have. When I dream I often wake up tired because my dreams are so vivid, they are like being awake. I prefer the dreamless sleep I have with my pill. Sorry Sandman.